Riptide
by PaperFrames
Summary: Olivia is his Achilles heel, and the more time they're together, the more he realizes this. She's a force in her own right, one that comes and goes in waves. Like a riptide that he's more than willing to drown in. [A series of EO related one-shots set from 1999-2012]


A/N: I have no business writing this when I have so many things that I need to work on/finish, yet here I am. Crucify me later, k?

Anyways, I haven't decided if I'm going to continue this or not like I'd originally planned by doing one, one shot per each of their 12/13 years together, yet. I guess I'll play it by ear and see what response this garners.

It's set way back in season 1, episode 22 titled 'Slaves' .

Baby/vintage EO all the way.

Warning for coarse language, badass baby benson, martial problems, and a slight bit of vintage Bensidy.

Enjoy and please, even if it's one word, review! I love hearing (well reading) feedback!

* * *

Riptide

(2000)

(11:45 PM)

He wants to break his phone just so his wife stops calling. Silence the ring permanently so he doesn't have to feel guilty each time he closes his phone instead of answering it. In the last hour alone she's called ten times and left eight messages. After the fifth unanswered call he'd hoped she'd gotten the message, but the blinking black envelope on his phone's screen tells him different.

And he knows, deep in the recesses of his alcohol addled brain, that she just wants to talk; make certain that he's okay after the case straight from hell. A case he's still in a strange state of disbelief and disgust over. Depraved indecency for life at its highest and he if he ever gets his hands on Randolph Morrow, he'll kill him.

Just like he'd told resident head-shrink Audrey Jackson. That's going to bode well for his job.

His phone rings - again. She's probably called captain by now looking for him; thinks he's lying somewhere on the side of the road, dead. If only to relieve her worries, he answers. Resignation heavy in his tone.

"Yeah, Kath?"

"El!" The panic in her voice is all too evident. "Thank God. I was so worried. What happened? Are you okay?"

He pinches the bridge of his nose, elbows digging into the wood tabletop and rocking it off balance. His drink tips in the process and whiskey spills all down his trousers. "Motherfuck-"

"Elliot!"

"I'm fine, Kathy. Just spilled my drink; that's all." He answers, wiping at the liquid before sinking back down in his booth, before realizing his mistake. He'd never told her he was going to the bar; hell she didn't even know he wasn't at work.

"Drink? Where are you? Elliot, its damn near midnight and it's Tuesday. I'm sitting here worried about you and you're out drinking?" Incredulity rides high in her tone. "I bought fresh beer and made your favourite for dinner and you're at a damn bar?"

God he wants to slam his phone down on the countertop and shatter it into a million pieces. "I needed to clear my head; this case -"

"The case you won't talk to me about? Please don't shut me out. Talk to me." Kathy pleads and Elliot rubs his left temple with his left hand. He knows she means well, he knows, but damn it he doesn't want to do this right now. There's too much sitting high on his chest.

"Not, not about this Kathy. I can't - these images - look, I just can't okay?"

"I'm your wife, El. You can-"

"Look, I said I can't damn it!" He grates, slamming his hand down on the table. Once again his drink tips, liquid spills from it, and a few people turn in his direction.

If she'd heard his outburst, she gives no inclination. "If you won't talk to me, El, you have to talk to someone."

"Kathy, not now."

On the other end of the phone, Elliot can hear his wife's heavy, emotion laden sigh. Guilt floods his system and his chest tightens. Lately all they seem to do is fight.

"Just... Not now okay? I've had a shit last two weeks and an even worse day." The image of Ilena clinging to Olivia as they'd pulled her from the coffin like contraption under Morrow's bed flood his thoughts.

"Do you...are you at least talking to Olivia?"

At the mention of his partner, Elliot feels his breath hitch. His eyes sweep the room and the worry he'd pushed to the back of his mind comes flooding back. He'd asked Olivia to accompany him to the hole in the wall dive bar and she'd opted out in exchange for a shower and fresh clothes. He can't blame her, either, but that doesn't stop him from worrying about her state of mind. She'd been in a state similar to him when he'd last seen her.

"Liv's not here, but if she was, I don't think she'd want to talk about it either..."

"She's not with you?"

Elliot's brows furrow and his jaw tightens, a knot forming between his shoulders. He's confused, lost as to what his wife is implying.

"I'm not her keeper," he answers defensively.

"I'm just saying, you two spend a lot of time together..."

"She's my partner." Agitation threatens to swallow him whole.

"From 9-6, but that doesn't stop you from being with her constantly..."

It's taking everything in Elliot not to snap his phone shut or just rip it in half at his wife's comments, but he still find himself snapping.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me right now, Kathy," he hisses, way harsher than he'd intends. "She's my partner. My friend. Sometimes we have to spend a lot of time together. Our jobs aren't a walk in the fucking park. Y'know. We're not baking cakes and shitting rainbows." The words fall from his lips like lava. Once they start falling, he finds it hard to force them to a halt. For the last two weeks he's been like an unfed predator lurking, ready to pounce on its prey and unlucky for Kathy, she's unknowingly bared her neck to him.

"And yeah, I talk to her," A dog with a bone, Elliot continues, seething, face hot.

"Because she doesn't nag me or badger me into talking to her. Because she sees the same shit I do, day in and day out." And he knows he's being unfair to her, to the woman that's been in his corner for fifteen years, but for some reason he can't force himself to stop. He hates the way he sounds, voice like jagged glass as he lashes out at her. He reminds himself off his father, of childhood memories better left forgotten.

Kathy sniffles and he knows now that she's crying. He hangs his head in frustration and guilt, picturing her beautiful blue eyes brimming with droplets of water; signs of his cruelty.

His voice softens. "Look, I'm sor...I've gotta go, Kath..."

There's static on the phone before she replies, "I love you, Elliot. Please, just come home soon..."

God the pain in her voice, the pain in his heart is just about unbearable. Drinking into oblivion sounds appealing to him right now.

He opens his mouth to answer his wife, try to reassure her and apologize for being a shit human being when the cushion of the booth shifts beneath him. He looks up to see his partner, bare faced and red eyed in front of him. His heart tugs towards her and he's immediately on alert, brows furrowing.

He forgets about the phone pressed to his ear and calls out his partner's name, surprised by her sudden appearance. "Liv."

Then it hits him. The phone. His wife. Her profession of undying love. His partner's name. Shit.

"Kathy-"

Click.

The deafening hum of a dial tone greets his new found cognizance, and Elliot tosses drops his phone onto the table. It lands with a clunk and he works a hand over his face in exhaustion.

Olivia clears her throat, her nails - which he notices almost instantly have been painted a dark, shiny black, drum along the table. A small smile pulls at his lips as he thinks of her sitting still long enough to doll herself up.

Richard White's comments from a couple of months back ring his memory. You're beautiful, but you dress down.

As much as White's comments had unnerved him, Elliot has to admit their veracity.

Finally his eyes fall across her face and he finds her gaze transfixed upon the water marks of the faux wood in front of them. If she heard him arguing with his wife, as usual she says nothing. But the look on her face, the cloudy redness in her dark eyes, and the faint lines tugging at the corners of her mouth as her bottom lip trembles ever so slightly, tell him all he needs to know. She's riding the highway to hell with him tonight.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asks, voice tentative; she is a raw nerve, a live wire.

Olivia doesn't answer him. Instead, her thin fingers seize his empty tumbler. "Whatever you're drinking, I'll buy you another." And just as quickly as she'd appeared in front of him, she disappears into the slow moving crowd.

Yeah, he needs another fucking drink.

/

She can't get to the bar fast enough.

Tonight, today, these last two weeks have all been a page right out of the devil's handbook. Ilena's face is the only thing she sees whenever she closes her eyes. And its driving her mad. She just needs something to dull her senses. Or knock her unconscious. She's not being picky because thanks to her captain, and her psyche eval, she has the next week off.

Oh fuck Audrey Jackson and fuck Morrow and just fuck it all.

After work she'd had every intention of going home, taking a scalding hot shower, dressing in her comfiest of pajamas, and sleeping until well into the next day. She didn't want to be shoved into Meloni's, standing at the bar as the guy next to her with a serious case of B.O thought he was covertly ogling her. Every time she closes her eyes, though, she sees Ilena, Constanata. The Polaroid's. That fucking rug. And she needs a drink, a strong one.

God damn it where's the bartender at?

"What are you having?"

Olivia's head snaps up to see the barmaid, with her dull red hair and olive skin awaiting her answer.

Sighing, Olivia glances down at Elliot's empty glass before bringing it to her nose and smelling it. Whatever he's drinking, she's doubling.

"Two whiskeys. One on the rocks."

The two tumblers slide across the counter and she takes the one lacking ice and throws it back. The liquid burns as it drips down her throat and she orders another, not in the mood to nurse anything.

She's three drinks in when she remembers that the tumbler nestled into her left palm belongs to her partner. And just like her, he looks like he's been dancing with the devil all night, too. His conversation she'd interrupted moments prior gnaws at her. Watching Elliot and his wife argue is hell. Though she'd only met his wife a handful of times, they were a beautiful couple; seeing them together gave Olivia hope that maybe she'd be just as happy one day.

Next to her, Mr. B.O on the barstool stirs. Olivia throws a look back at her partner and a warmness buds in the bottom of her stomach thanks to the whiskey. She sways on her feet ever so slightly and she smiles at him.

"Pretty girl with a pretty smile..." B.O grins, hot breath rancid.

Her smile instantly fades, dark eyes rolling and she slips a twenty from her pocket with her free hand and slides it across the bar. "There's not enough alcohol in the world, my friend."

"Well aren't you a frigid bitch." He hisses and Olivia chortles, too used to the wounded male ego once denied.

"Whatever lets you sleep at night," tumbler in hand, she pushes away from the bar only to be greeted with an unsolicited hand wrapping around her elbow.

"Come on bitch. Don't be that way with daddy..."

The bough breaks. Olivia reaches her proverbial fever pitch and blanks. She barely registers the crunch of bone against bone or the sound of breaking glass.

Next thing she knows she's coming to, Elliot's arm around her waist and a throbbing, pins and needles sensation sets in, in her right hand. Her dark locks are disheveled and she's breathing rapidly. Raucous laughter fills the air and her ear drums thump with blood.

Beneath her feet, public enemy number one lies, clutching his nose as blood spills from it. Uncontrollable anger shakes Olivia to the core, sweat beads gathering at her hairline, and all she wants to do is take another swing at the man on the ground. Kick him until he feels the pain that's threatening to tear her in two. Whether she wants to or not, though, she knows that she has to keep it together. The way her luck seemed to run lately, she'd be in the back of two beat cops cruiser for a drunken disorderly.

"Crazy bitch broke my nose!"

"You're lucky I didn't break more!" She finds herself shouting and the barmaid yells something Olivia only partially understands.

"Yeah, bud, and you're lucky I'm not arresting you for assaulting a cop!" Elliot's voice grates in her ear and she has to get away. Out from beneath his vice grip because she can feel the waterfall build behind her eyelids. She's going to cry, breakdown from the stress of it all and she refuses to let anyone, especially her partner, see her shatter.

/

(12:15 AM)

Elliot watches as she goes, tearing away from him in a blur. He glances down at the crumpled mess at his feet, a sly grin tugging at his lips. Man that's his Liv, a right hook like Ali in his prime; he knows, he's spared her before.

"Get up, and get out before I hit ya. Head down to Mercy or something." He instructs, grabbing what he supposes is the guys coat and tosses onto the ground at the guy. Turning to the barmaid, he apologises grimly, reaching into his pocket for his badge and insuring her that he was, indeed, an off duty cop willing to pay for the glasses that'd shattered in Olivia's wake. When everything's squared away, he sets off in pursuit of his partner.

He muddles through the thin crowd, eyes searching for her familiar bob of black hair. The table he'd vacated in a hurry when he'd caught her clocking back her arm to strike is empty. She's not tucked into a dark booth in a different corner, nor is she sandwiched along a wall or near the jukebox. Once again he scans round the room, wondering if she'd taken off through the front door and out into the night. She's in no state to go anywhere alone.

And then he sees her, out of the corner of his eye and off to his left, down the narrow hall that leads to the bathrooms and stock area. She's got herself pressed against the hall wall, heel of her non-bruised left hand digging into her eye socket and her right hand cradled against her chest.

She seems so tiny to him in that moment. So small and soft. Almost childlike. The jutted out chin and puffed up exterior is gone. Her shoulders are hunched forward and for the first time he notices just how small she is in comparison to him; just how big she tries to be with her oversized blazers, chunky combat boots, and 'don't fuck with me' attitude.

He takes in her appearance with his detective's eye. She's traded in her blazer for a slouchy faded black cardigan that she wears over a form fitting white V-neck shirt; her wide leg trousers for a dark wash tightly fitted jeans, and her clunky boots for a pair of red Keds. She's cute, all curves and soft edges.

Soft sobs shake him from his appreciative glances, and the sounds propel his feet forward. Olivia's crying. The protective instinct that he has for her, that he finds grows each moment he spends in her company takes over. He'll break that bastards legs, kneecaps first, if that's the reason she's crying.

Worried, he calls out to her, chest tight with fear. "Liv."

"I'm fine, El." Olivia squeaks, swaying on her feet as she quickly straightens up. Her head lolls against the wood paneling behind her, knocking against a picture frame of a gambling dogs.

A surge of protectiveness spurs him on and he's grabbing her wrists gently, inspecting her bruised knuckles before yanking her into his arms. Her chin hooks over his right shoulder, and he's dwarfing her lithe frame with his larger one; cocooning her to shelter her from the internal war he knows she's waging because he's fighting the same one.

If they're crossing the lines as partners, here in this dimly light tight fit bar room hallway by hugging it out, he doesn't care. First and foremost, she's his friend. The proverbial pain in his ass that he can't seem to find his equilibrium without any more. In a little over a year, she's become his second half and he'll do anything - anything - to protect her.

"Did he hurt you, Liv?"

Against his shoulder she can feel her shake her head, feel her silky tresses rub against the stubble of his chin. Her hands reach up, underneath his arms, to grip his shoulders and they sway together ever so slightly.

It's an inkling thought, one he tries to shove to the recesses of his mind with everything else that he knows he shouldn't think or feel, but it still crawls into his conscious: his feelings for her are changing. She feels like a small piece of heaven tucked tightly into his arms. For the first time all night, and in the last two weeks, he finds the tension seeping from his body. There's just something so comforting and warm about her presence in his arms that he just breathes.

He never wants this moment to end.

/

Air floods her lungs and the taste of salt sits on her lips.

A strange sense of relief floods her body and the pain in her right hand dissipates. Elliot's body is warm, a much welcomed reprieve from the trepid night. She finds herself sinking into him as silent tears slip from her eyes.

Her mouth's dry and the taste of the whiskey that sits on her tongue threatens to turn into that of regret. As much as she's liked to stay like this forever, inside the arms of a man she knows wants nothing from her in return - just her friendship and her safety - she knows she can't.

It's late Tuesday night/ early Wednesday morning and while neither of them have a job to attend to in the morning, they can't stay here like this. For one, the hallways is far too small, and for two she doesn't know if she's breaking some type of work rule by sinking against her partner so readily. Plus, there's no crying in baseball and here she is, crying; how will he partner see her? She's not some woman he has to protect; she's a formidable officer of the law who can take care of herself. Even if she is three whiskeys in and one away from the wind.

"El, I'm fine." She states more forcefully this time, pushing on his shoulders as a signal for him to let her go. He pulls back, his oversized hands still resting on her the tops of her shoulders. Two lone tears slip from her eyes and she laughs, humorless laughter. "This case just got to me, that's all. Jackass at the bar just happened to catch me at the wrong moment, too. Every time I close my eyes -"

"You see Ilena - you hear her pleas." Elliot finishes for her, nodding knowingly. "Yeah. Me too."

"Is that's why you were arguing with Kathy when I first got here?" She finds herself asking, not realizing that she's still locked in a seemingly chaste embrace with the woman's husband she's currently asking about.

"Yeah. It's...I don't want these things that are in my head in her head." He tells her and Olivia nods knowingly. Gooseflesh rises along her wool covered arms and she keeps her palms passively opened, pressed against his shoulders. On her right hand, her knuckles are darkening and she knows that she should get some ice before it swells.

"I get it, El." She whispers, nodding her bob of black hair. She does understand. The shit they see every day; dead, mutilated corpses, sometimes belong to children, she wouldn't wish that on her worst enemy. Sometimes she wishes she could scrub her brain raw; wipe the images from her memory. The academy never did - or even could have even - prepared her for the smell of death, the sight of beaten and abused women; children afraid of their own shadows. Victims.

Their eyes connect and she sees something smoldering beneath his dark blues. Something that causes a shift, a tilt in the atmosphere around them. And he notices it, too. She can tell by the way his eyes darken, he licks his lips, and his thumbs are suddenly rubbing circles along the tops of her shoulders.

He leans into her and...

/

_I get it, El._

He finds sweet relief in her words and, like a moth to a flame, finds himself leaning in to her.

He licks his lips, feeling her warm breath against the nape of his neck, catching sight of her hooded dark eyes. The air between them is thick, heated and ready to catch fire. Blood rushes to his ears and his heart thumps against his chest.

Before he realizes what he's doing his lips are on hers, adrenaline spurring him forward, and courses through his body like a runaway freight train. He's curling his hand around her neck, fingers in her hair, and his other hand reaching for her waist. There's a long moment of his mouth on hers. She breathes in like a sigh and opens her mouth and he takes it as an invitation to slide his tongue along hers.

Their mouths mesh in perfect synchronicity and together they taste like sadness, sleepless nights, stale station houses, and bittersweet relief.

He's kissing her. He's kissing his partner. He's kissing Olivia.

And she doesn't shove him away.

Olivia's hand braces against his chest, palms flat like she's about to push him away, but she doesn't press. She just rests it there as she returns his kisses, like a warning, a promise to shove him away if he goes too far. He trails a hand down her side, to her hips underneath the cardigan and grips her soft flesh. Not tight enough to hurt her, but tight enough to keep her in place.

One of them, he can't tell who, is shaking. Maybe it's him, maybe it's her, he doesn't know. All he knows is that she's moaning into his mouth, her palms are curling into fists against his chest, tugging on his shirt and fuck - for the first time in a long time - he's breathing.

He's breathing her in so deep, and one of his thighs is slipping between her legs and his hand on her hip is inching higher, beneath her shirt.

Who breaks their kiss first; they'll never know. But they end up with their foreheads pressed together, hands still, breath steep, and eyes closed.

/

It takes a moment for the fog around them to lift, but, for Olivia, the regret is almost instantaneous, her mind automatically assuming the worst.

She's wrecked another marriage.

Unlike eight years prior, as a fresh faced college co-ed, she doesn't have naïveté as an excuse. She can't blame the older, more experienced man for taking advantage of a silly little girl because she'd wanted him- Elliot - and the kiss.

She'd kissed a married man - a married father of four who happened to be her friend and partner. And, if she's being honest with herself, it'd felt good. His body sandwiched against hers had felt good. That thought alone terrifies her.

Fingers tingling, she lets go of his shirt; her chest heaves beneath the too thick and yet somehow too thin white cotton of her V-neck. Her palms flatten against his chest and she gnaws at her bottom lip, forcing the impending flood behind her eyes to a halt. If only she was drunker, she could blame the whiskey.

"Let go..." The words roll of her tongue in knots, and as good as his forehead feels pressed against hers, this has to end.

Slowly, he does. His eyes flutter open and his hands drop from around her as he backs against the wall opposite her. His voice is thick, muddled when he speaks. "Liv, I…"

She shakes her head, the guilt and regret budding in the pit of her stomach. How is she ever going to look at his wife again? His children? She's grown so fond of his family, the commitment he has to his wife, and the love he has for his children. Their marriage, his family is something she strives to emulate, to protect.

How will she ever look his family in the face again? How _can_ she? Not when she'll be thinking of how well her lips moved in sync with Elliot's or the feel of his fingers dancing up her sides or the blooming, inkling warmth that'd spread throughout her body when their foreheads were pressed together.

"No. Don't." Olivia raises a hand to stop him from speaking any further. "I, I should go ice my hand or just - just go."

She doesn't give him time to respond, instead she shoves off the wall and makes a beeline for the door, refusing to look back.

Space.

The more space she puts between them, the better.

/

(1:08 AM)

Stunned at his actions - at himself - he watches as she disappears; hair mussed, clothes crumpled, out into the dark.

He goes home that night with the taste of his partner fresh on his tongue to find Kathy sitting up in bed, blue eyes locked on the night sky that peaks in between the shades of their bedroom window.

She looks like the angel he never deserved dressed in her lily white night gown, blonde locks framing her face. In hand she grips the neck of a wine bottle and she's expressionless save for the small purse of her lips. He knows she's been crying and he's the reason why, but he can't find the right words to say to her though I'm sorry would be a start

But words are difficult – rough- because he's a raw nerve pulling apart at the seams right now.

Ready to burst if as much as a feather falls on top of him.

Beneath his heavy feet the floor creaks, and he takes the somewhat dreaded, somewhat welcomed steps into their bedroom. His shoulders sag, as they fight to hold up the weight of his catholic guilt.

_He kissed his partner. _

Slowly, methodically, he undoes his cuff-links, removes his jacket and starts to unbutton his button-down.

_She'd kissed him back. _

With a clink his belt hits the floor, followed by the soft swish of his pants.

_And he'd wanted to take her home._

God he's so fucked up. In front of him his wife is sitting, distraught and hurt because of him, and all he can do is think of his partner.

Olivia.

He thinks of her lithe body beneath his hands, pliable and responsive. The way her lips parted to allow him access to her mouth. Skin soft beneath his rough fingertips. Tresses like silk beneath his hands. She'd smelled like Lavender and vanilla; comfort, and understanding.

Shit, he yearns for her, yearns for the comfort of her presence and the silent understanding that exists so strongly between them because she's the calm to his storm.

And fuck it all, but he wants nothing more in that moment than Olivia. He's getting ready to crawl into bed with his wife, but his partner is crawling deeper into his consciousness. He thinks of going home to her every night and finding comfort in her embrace; them finding comfort in each other's arms.

He thinks of caving into her lithe body after a bad case and what it'd be like for her arms to wrap around him. He wants to weep into the crook of her neck as she rubs soft circles on the painful knots of his shoulders. She knows he won't lie to him that everything will be okay because like him, she knows better.

What he wants is to in turn be her shelter from the cold; keep the demons out of her head as he brushes falling strands of her dark hair away from her black eyes and promises to protect her non-existent innocence.

The clink of glass against wood shakes his thoughts. Kathy sets the wine bottle down on the nightstand next to their bed and her gaze is points to him.

A pang of guilt twists his gut. His wife is falling apart in front of him and he knows he needs to say something to her. Every word he tries to speak, to push past his lips in some effort of detente, though, dies on his tongue. The apologies for his lateness, his quietness, the growing distance between them, and even his current thoughts, all fall silent.

As usual, Kathy saves him the effort of small talk and forced interaction with a heavy sigh and a terse smile. Elliot reads her body language, her eyes, and it all tells him that she knows something he doesn't, and whatever it is, she'll never tell.

"Is Olivia okay?" she asks, voice small - uncertain. "Did you two talk?"

Talk.

Yeah, they talked. For two seconds before he'd pinned her against the dingy, dark, and cramped bar hall and pawed all over her like some Neanderthal without a second thought as to what it'd do to their relationship. Without so much consideration as what his actions would do to her.

"We…" He breaks off, thinking of her lips, her bruised fingers, and the hold he doesn't want to admit that she has over him.

Olivia is his Achilles heel, and the more time they're together, the more he realizes this. She's a force in her own right that comes and goes in waves. Like a riptide that he's more than willing to drown in.

"She's fine. I'm fine. We're fine." He says flatly, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbing. He's just about sweated out all of the alcohol he'd downed earlier and exhaustion is seeping into his bones.

Kathy nods knowingly, bottom lip trembling; she turns from him. Elliot can see the wetness on her cheeks, the streaks of sweat on her face, and knows now for certain that she's spent her night crying; probably has been ever since she'd called him an hour prior and he'd taken her head off.

"Kath, I-" he doesn't know and the words make it to the same graveyard of everything else he's failed to say and should say to her so far that night.

"Good thing she has you. Good thing you two have each other." Kathy responds, resignation in her tone as she turns off the lamp, and then lays down; back to Elliot.

He watches, confused, but too exhausted, both mentally and physically, to question - to ask what she means; what she's insinuating with her words _good thing you two have each other_.

Paranoia gets to him them. Was she in that hallway? Can she see Olivia's lip prints on his mouth? Does he smell like her? Does his wife know how far his feelings for his partner goes?

Elliot grabs a tank top from his dresser, pulls it on, crawls into bed and closes his eyes. He tosses and the bed creaks, his forearm grazes against his wife's back and he thinks of how it'd be so simple to reach out and find comfort in her frame, in her. Apologize for being a shit husband and beg her forgiveness for his defensiveness. But he can't.

Something's stopping him and in the back of his mind, the deep recesses of his purposefully unacknowledged thoughts, he know exactly who (and what) that something is. He's falling in love with this partner. The fondness he has for the woman who watches his back day in and day out is changing into something he never saw coming.

With an exasperated sigh, he presses the back of his left hand to his mouth and he can still feel her lips, taste her tongue. Briefly he considers the ramifications of their – his – actions. He wonders if he's just lost his partner. Will she leave him when she wakes from her whiskey haze in the morning? Put in a formal request for a partner change? Will he lose his second half all together?

Damn it he hates himself.

Next to him, Kathy's form rises and falls as she breathes in and out.

As his eyes finally flutter closed, the whiskey taking him under the riptide, Olivia barrels back into his thoughts. He wonders if she's asleep. If she's thinking about him. About the bar and their bodies pressed together in the cramped space of that poorly lit hallway.

/

(2:37 AM)

Across town Olivia sits on her toilet seat, dressed in her underwear and a tank-top, ice pack on her hand. In her bedroom her latest drunken dial and second mistake that night Brian, sleeps, tangled in her sex stained sheets. She wants nothing more than to wake him and force him out of her bed - her house - and even the memory of him between her legs from her head. He's everywhere on her body and while it'd been more than consensual on her part, it doesn't change the fact that she wishes he was someone else that she shouldn't even entertain thoughts like this about. She wishes he was her partner.

And for that, she hates herself.

The feel of Elliot's lips on hers and his hands, one creeping underneath her shirt, and the other gripping the back of head, threaded in her mahogany locks, as she moaned into his mouth is still fresh in her memory. His body had fit against hers like a well-worn glove and in a total of two minutes he'd damn near brought her to her knees.

What's wrong with her? He's her partner, _her friend_. _Nothing_ more. Ever. She likes his wife, and loves his family and fuck. She can't stop thinking about him – it- the kiss.

What truly keeps her thinking back to him, though, thinking back to that regrettably brief and somewhat incidental encounter in the too narrow bar, is the way he'd pressed his forehead to hers once they'd broken apart. A chase gesture in nature, it'd been far more than that. It'd been a moment of intimacy she'd never encountered before.

It'd been the comfort she needed and she wanted - and still wants. The gentle gesture that, had they stayed there for a moment longer, would have caused her to collapse and cry against his frame - again.

God she wants nothing more in this moment but to feel his heart beating against hers and listen to his rhythmic breathing as he strokes her hair and promises that he's there. She wants to know that he's never going anywhere because his presence is all she needs. The lies that everything will be okay, or the forced 'the world is a better place now' - the sweet and hollow nothings that come with police work aren't necessary for her. She just wants him.

But he doesn't belong to her. Tonight, their kiss, was - no _is_ \- a fluke. The misjudgments of a man who'd just seen the worst in the world and had, had a bit too much to drink. That's it.

And that might be it, but that doesn't stop the hollow ache in her chest; visceral yearning she has for him - her best friend- and the comfort he so effortlessly provides.

A yawn escapes her lips and she stretches, pulling at the knots in her neck and trying to combat the sagging of her shoulders beneath the weight of her guilt - guilt she has for not finding Ilena sooner; guilt for Constanata's death, and guilt over enjoying her partner's kiss.

She stands, legs aching from the stretch of her earlier activities and drops the ice pack into the sink. She wriggles her bruised hand, noticing that her knuckles are slightly swollen and then presses two fingers to her lips. She can still feel his lips.

Her reflection catches her attention as she passes the mirror and she hates what she sees. She hates herself for wondering if, when the alcohol fades, a devoted husband and father of four will remember the minutes they shared together in the dark piss stained hallway of a hole in the wall dive bar.

Just as quickly as that thought comes, it leaves. She turns away from the reflection staring back at her and silently reserves herself to being forgotten, _to forgetting_ him, instead. She won't leave him; she can't. Without him this job just might be too unbearable. But that doesn't stop her from making a silent commitment to making some changes; to drawing much needed lines between them.

Tomorrow is a new day and she promises herself that she will put some type of distance between herself and her partner because that's what he is and always will be. Maybe she'll even get a haircut.

But for now she'll settle with waking Cassidy and fucking him until she can't see straight.

* * *

_"You're afraid of lying down with me and never wanting to get up again._  
_That scares me too._  
_Comfort that consumes you." - Warsan Shire_


End file.
